The use of a sweeping jet fluidic oscillator for issuing a sweeping jet of air to, for example, clear the windshield of an automobile, is known in the art. In the above-identified related application of Stouffer, one embodiment utilizes a continuous inertance loop fluidic oscillator in which a cross-over type fluidic oscillator has a pair of converging sidewalls leading to a common outlet with the air jet issuing from a power nozzle being caused to shift from one side of the chamber to the other and issue in a sweeping fashion through the common outlet by virtue of the action of a continuous inertance loop connecting control ports at each side of the air jet at it issues from the power nozzle. In the above-identified related application of Boone et al., the oscillator portion is made relaively short and instead of a diverging converging cross-over type chamber fluidic oscillator element, the sidewalls of the interaction region diverge from each other to form a narrow, elongated slot to accomodate the sweeping angle of the oscillator. The pair of control ports immediately adjacent and downstream of the power nozzle are connected by continuous inertance loop with several different techniques utilized for accomodating the inertance loop which is of a length and cross-sectional area so as to assure that the frequency of oscillation is below about 12 kHz.
The present invention is an improvement on the fluidic oscillator disclosed in the above-identified related applications, and especially on the fluidic oscillator disclosed in the above related application of Boone et al.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved inertance loop construction for fluidic oscillators; more particularly, an object of the invention is to provide an improved continuous inertance loop construction which results in a flatter fluidic element which is easier and less expensive to fabricate and provide a novel cross-over for the inertance loop between opposite sides of the element so that the fluidic element can be molded in two parts or halves. According to the invention, the loop is substantially coplanar with body of the oscillator with a portion of the inertance loop being formed as a passage which crosses through the power nozzle itself.